The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.

Daily Lesson (Morning), April 5, 2024. 

Part 2: “Introduction to the Book of Zohar.” Item 70.

Reader: We are reading in the book, “Introduction to the Book of Zohar.” We're at the very end. We're continuing from item 70.

Reading Item 70: (00:20) “This is what is written in the Tikkunim [corrections] of The Zohar (Tikkun 30, “Second Path”): “Awaken and rise for the Shechina, for you have an empty heart, without the understanding to know and to attain it, although it is within you.” The meaning of the matter is as it is written (Isaiah 40), a voice says, “Call!” as in “Call! Is there anyone who answers you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?” And she says, “What can I call, all that is flesh is hay; they are all as beasts that eat hay, and all their mercies are as the flower of the field; every mercy that they do, they do for themselves.”

The meaning of this is as it is written (Isaiah 40): “A voice says, ‘Call!’” that a voice pounds in the heart of each and every one from Israel, to cry and to pray for the raising of the Shechina, which is the collection of all the souls of Israel. He brings evidence from the text, “Call! Is there anyone who answers you?” for calling means praying.

But the Shechina says, “What can I call?” That is, I have no strength to raise myself from the dust, for “All that is flesh is hay,” they are all like beasts, eating grass and hay. This means that they observe the commandments mindlessly, like beasts. “Every mercy that they do, they do for themselves,” meaning that in the commandments they perform, they have no intention to do them in order to bring contentment to their Maker. Rather, they observe the commandments only for their own benefit.

“And even all those who exert in Torah, every mercy that they do, they do for themselves.” Even the best among them, who dedicate all their time to engagement in the Torah, do it only to benefit their own bodies, without the desirable aim: to bring contentment to their Maker.

“At that time, the spirit leaves and will not return to the world.” It is said about the generation of that time: “A spirit leaves and will not return to the world.” This is the spirit of the Messiah, meaning the spirit of the Messiah, who must deliver Israel from all their troubles until the complete redemption, to fulfill the words, “The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord.” That spirit has left and does not shine in the world.

“Woe unto them who cause him to leave the world and not return to the world, for they are the ones who make the Torah dry, and do not want to engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah.” Woe unto those people who make the spirit of Messiah leave and depart from the world, and not be able to return to the world. They are the ones who make the Torah dry, without any moisture of sense and reason, for they confine themselves only to the practical part of the Torah and do not want to try to understand the wisdom of Kabbalah, to know and to learn the secrets of the Torah and the flavors of Mitzva [commandment].

“Woe unto them, for they cause poverty and ruin, looting and killing, and destruction in the world.” Woe unto them, for with these actions they bring about the existence of poverty, ruin, robbery, looting, killing, and destructions in the world.”

M. Laitman: (05:00) Anything to ask? No. Alright. It's the 30th correction from the book of the Zohar, it's really, really famous from all the books that relate to the end of correction, the corrections so they always mention that correction number 30. All right, if no questions we keep going. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (05:39) Rav, he writes, it's a very emotional excerpt, get up and call for the holy Shechina because you have a soft heart, with that the understanding to know and to attain it, although it is within you. What does it mean that the Shechina is within us? 

M. Laitman: Yes, of course. That in the nation of Israel, the Shechina is there and doesn't leave us but she is covered with many shells upon her. 

Student: Yesterday I heard you say that the Shechina is a will to receive, that we invert into a will to receive in order to bestow, if I heard properly, that the Shechina is between the Creator and the person.

M. Laitman: What do you want to ask? 

Student: I want to ask if the Shechina is a desire if it's something within us, then it is something hidden, or it's something that's above that we have to awaken from above. 

M. Laitman: We awaken it from above. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (07:05) I felt in this excerpt that Baal HaSulam tells me that I have no intention to bestow, that the intention to bestow, the Upper force needs to give, and I can only ask the Ten, the Friends, the World Kli. Why am I to blame for not having an intention to bestow? 

M. Laitman: You have to ask. 

Student: But there is a request, otherwise I wouldn't be here. But in any case, I feel that I'm to blame for the result and not for the request. 

M. Laitman: Still, you have to ask. 

Student: Can I ask another question? Afterward, in the continuation of the excerpt he says that through this work, they pulled out Israel from all of their troubles, and suffering so I feel that pulling me out of all the troubles and suffering, that's a benefit for the will to receive, it doesn't go together with the intention to bestow. 

M. Laitman: You still don't know how to come out of Egypt, how to come out from one to the other and what you need to do and how to ask. You're just talking like a little child. 

Student: So as a child what's the advice for such a state? 

M. Laitman: So, there's nothing to explain yet. I have nothing to explain if you're asking like a child.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (08:55) There is this gentleness here in relation to the intention, that whether we do the Mitzvot for self-benefit or to bring contentment to the Creator. He says that if we try, in the wisdom of Kabbalah, to kill ourselves with the secrets of the Torah and the flavors of Mitzvot that's what helps us reach the correct intention. I wanted to ask in relation to our study, what am I supposed to seek when I'm reading the article? How should I seek the foundations and the flavors of the Torah, the secrets, and the flavors of Torah? Maybe I'm not reading it properly. Maybe I need something else to do. What does it mean to learn the secrets of the Torah and the flavors of Mitzvot? 

M. Laitman: In order to know the secrets of the Torah and the taste in the Mitzvot.

Student: What does it mean in terms of our study and our work? It seems that there, you can somewhat come closer to bestowal. 

M. Laitman: Yes. To really dig in there, what is demanded of me in the flavors of the Mitzvot and the secrets of the Torah, that I will aim myself directly and correctly towards the Creator and receive from Him forces in understanding for my correction. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (10:49) Can I ask something about our lesson? 

M. Laitman: What? 

Student: I hear the friends asking questions. I also hear myself and I hear what questions I have in relation to this, and it seems that my whole life I have had the same questions, and also the questions have those questions, and we ask the same friends, ask with a different flavor with the same questions. Your answer gives something, some satisfaction, some flavor in the same moment, but then they ask something else and now that I'm reading the excerpt I hear myself asking the same questions, but it's not the same questions, it's something completely different. Why is that? What is special about each and every one of us? Maybe, it's how we hear the answer but what's the reason for it to be this way? 

M. Laitman: That's the problem, that we need to learn how to aim ourselves to come closer to the Creator, to aim ourselves towards Him specifically, and I guess we're not successful, that it's not working. So, to ask, why aren't we successful? 

Student: Yes, but that desire of each of us to come closer to the Creator, it's clear, otherwise we wouldn't be here, but it dresses in each one in a certain way, and in certain questions, which we constantly repeat, day after day, moment after moment, that there is something, that there are very much flavors in that. But why is that the case? Why do I always have the same questions? Why do I hear these same questions in others, but it's not the same questions? It's always on a different layer?

M. Laitman: Well, and? 

Student: Why is that? Why am I not asking the friend’s question and why is he not asking the other friends question? 

M. Laitman: Yes, we need to connect more and more to demand the answers from the Creator. I don't know what to add. I read that excerpt about 50 years ago and then it wasn't clear to me. Since then, I started a bit more to come closer to it and to try and understand and feel, to connect. It is the secret of creation, that we need to reach a state that the Creator needs to help us. The Creator needs to help us. If we understand what we need to ask for, and in what He can help us.

Student: So, I still want to ask about the excerpt. There's a lot of responsibility that Baal HaSulam tells us that each and every thought, each and every intention that you miss out, or don't take the opportunity to bestow and do something for the friends, it's damaging for the whole world. So why isn't it shown to us? 

M. Laitman: They cannot show us more, in order that our correction, our choice, will be true. We cannot do more than that. 

Student: Can we ask to see it in the Ten or is that not right? We have to see only the good. 

M. Laitman: Each and every one needs to ask such that we will connect in our prayers and we will all receive but in the meantime, what is written here, as much as it is bitter, but in any case, they cause poverty and ruin, looting and killing and destruction in the world with their actions. 

Reading Item 71: (17:23) The reason for their words is as we have explained, that when all those who engage in the Torah degrade their own internality and the internality of the Torah, leaving it as though it were redundant in the world, and engage in it only at a time that is neither day nor night, and they are in it like blind people searching the wall, by this they intensify their own externality, the benefit of their own bodies. Also, they regard the externality of the Torah as higher than the internality of the Torah. By these actions, they make all the forms of externality in the world overpower all the parts of internality in the world, each according to its essence.

This is so because 1) the externality in the whole of Israel, meaning the nations of the world in them, overpowers and revokes the internality in the whole of Israel, who are those who are great in the Torah. 2) Also, the externality in the nations of the world—the destructors among them—overpower and revoke the internality among them, who are the righteous of the nations of the world. 3) Additionally, the externality of the whole world, being the nations of the world, overpower and revoke the children of Israel, who are the internality of the world.

In such a generation, all the destructors among the nations of the world raise their heads and wish primarily to destroy and to kill the children of Israel, as it is written (Yevamot 63), “No calamity comes to the world but for Israel.” This means, as it is written in the above Tikkunim, that they cause poverty, ruin, robbery, killing, and destructions in the whole world.

After, through our many faults, we have witnessed all that is said in the above-mentioned Tikkunim, and moreover, the judgment struck the very best of us, as our sages said (Baba Kama 60), “And it begins with the righteous first,” and of all the glory Israel had had in the countries of Poland and Lithuania, etc., there remains but the relics in our holy land, now it is upon us, relics, to correct that dreadful wrong. Each of us remainders should take upon himself, heart and soul, to henceforth intensify the internality of the Torah and give it its rightful place according to its merit over the externality of the Torah.

Then, each and every one of us will be rewarded with intensifying his own internality, meaning the Israel within him, which is the needs of the soul over his own externality, which is the nations of the world within him, being the needs of the body. And that force will come to the whole of Israel, as well, until the nations of the world within us recognize and acknowledge the merit of the great sages of Israel over them, and they will listen to them and obey them.

Additionally, the internality of the nations of the world, the righteous of the nations of the world, will overpower and submit their externality, who are the destructors. The internality of the world, too, who are Israel, will rise in all their merit and virtue over the externality of the world, who are the nations.

Then, all the nations of the world will recognize and acknowledge Israel’s merit over them, and will fulfill the words (Isaiah 14), “And the peoples will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them in the land of the Lord.” And also (Isaiah 49), “And they will bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters will be carried on their shoulders.” This is the meaning of what is written in The Zohar (Nasso, p 124b), “Through your composition,” which is The Book of Zohar, “they will be redeemed from exile with mercy.” Amen, would that be so.”

M. Laitman: (23:52) That's what's given to us in the meantime to understand, to feel, from this article of Baal HaSulam.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:09) Who are the ones who are making the Torah dry? 

M. Laitman: Whoever, instead of making corrections they engage, just like with children in all kinds of other things. 

Student: We have the force to do anything, to change, we have a demand towards them, or they're like children, there's nothing to demand of them. 

M. Laitman: I don't know, we cannot demand from little children because that's according to nature. Those who make the Torah dry, it seems that you can say something about that.

Student: They have the force to not make it dry, to bring some wetness, to bring it to life? 

M. Laitman: We don't ask that. We simply need to bring each and every one to what he's capable of. 

Student: In what can we, in our work, affect them to make the Torah whether dry or not dry? 

M. Laitman: We, as if, want to give an example. I don't know how much that influences them in the correct direction but sometimes I do feel that it influences.

Student: I'm trying to be more precise. They are making the Torah dry or are we not giving the right forces and for that reason they're making it dry? 

M. Laitman: It seems as if it could also be us.

Student: Who's to complain towards? Who's Baal HaSulam pointing to? 

M. Laitman: To all those who could help or do by themselves corrections, and they don't do it. 

Student: What should I tell myself, on the ones who have the force to correct but they'd rather deal with the externality? Is that sufficient to them.

M. Laitman: We need to show them what is correct to do, as much as we understand that, meaning to perform corrections. 

Student: To show them, meaning to perform corrections?

M. Laitman: Yes, we need to perform corrections and hope that they will see what they also need to do. 

Student: They are holding us back in something? 

M. Laitman: Yes, about that it's written in another place. Indeed, they're holding us back. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (27:15) What's this function called, the righteous of the world? 

M. Laitman: Those are the good ones in the nations of the world who do actions of help and connection. 

Student: How much are they dependent on Israel themselves? 

M. Laitman: I cannot say, it does not depend on us. That is, they get an awakening from the Creator. 

Student: So, they get an awakening directly and whether they work or not work, but by that they're also affecting the whole world.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So, without connection to the work of Israel they are like a system, a parallel system? 

M. Laitman: It's a special system in parallel to another more internal system, and they very much assist the correction. 

Student: So, they're not affected by Israel, it's like they work on a parallel frequency? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: Can Israel help them somewhat? 

M. Laitman: It goes through different channels, through the heavens as it's called. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (29:24) Baal HaSulam insists that without studying the wisdom of Kabbalah there won't be hastening of the times and the spirit of the Messiah will be gone, and in a different place, he writes we'll see the atom and hydrogen bombs. And you said in the past, that sensitivity between us, the friends, hastens the times. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: Will we be able to at least me, testify that I need help, could we, towards entering Passover maybe touch that matter of the sensitivity between us? 

M. Laitman: To feel what? 

Student: To open about it a bit, to elaborate and study about that gentleness between us. because sometimes it means putting things on the table. It's a way of action that we're lacking.

M. Laitman: That depends on you. It depends solely on you.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (30:46) I feel inside that if a miracle won't happen everything is closed off. We see also, what Baal HaSulam says, he probably felt it too. When you look at all the streams in the Jewish world and in the world, everything, nobody hears the other, everything is closed off. You can't convince anyone. You can't talk to anyone. Each one justifies himself and only a miracle can help. How do you reach that miracle? 

M. Laitman: Our path is indeed a path of miracles, the path of the Creator. 

Student: My father used to say that every day we live here is a miracle, but we need something a lot greater than that.

M. Laitman: Yes. We'll try. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (32:02) Especially after what the friend shared about the prayer; I want to share that we came from Karmiel today. We left at 12:30 to come here. We read the preparation of the prayer of the many that the friends did. Something started. The Ten, with a desire of a friend, wanted to start singing the Rabash melodies, the Nigunim, so we started singing and we joined him and for an hour and a half of driving, we were just singing the melodies and the intentions of the world Kli that it will hold that common prayer. So we have another 15 minutes. How can we hold on that there will be mercy in these 15 minutes to hold that common prayer? 

M. Laitman: We need to exert. We need to exert.

Student: (34:01) This correction, the complaint that is written here, we say Baal HaSulam, but it's written in the book of Zohar. 

M. Laitman: Yes, the Tikkun itself is a very well-known Tikkun. It's written in many books. The prophets and in general. So, what do you want to say? 

Student: The fact that they're pointing on those who are making the Torah dry, that was written as a complaint, it was still in the book of Zohar. 

M. Laitman: Yes, it's the Tikkun 30.

Student: So, what is the Tikkun, the correction? It's like a correction in the system itself. It's something that was there 2,000 years ago. 

M. Laitman: It's that we all need to connect, all of us, and according to what is written in the book of Zohar, not to forget that in which we need to all be together as one man with one heart, through which the correction will come to the whole of the people of Israel.

Student: It's essential to understand what everyone means. 

M. Laitman: Everyone as it's written about everyone, meaning each and every one whose heart cares about. 

Student: Where do you recognize more people that their heart is concerned? 

M. Laitman: No, that's what we need to do. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (36:03) It's really the 30th correction from the book of Zohar and we see that also years ago, from the Hashmonites' mutiny, a lot of parts of the nation left the true path of the Torah. Part also left to other countries and started to keep religion instead of spirituality and so on. That's why back then there were also parts that we see it's actually just like today. It makes me think that actually maybe we have to understand this text, not as some blame towards other people that they'll start studying the internality of the Torah because we see it doesn't happen, but it's more as a warning to us that we will guard ourselves to make sure we don't make the Torah dry and we won't fall from the true studies. Maybe, that's the right way to look at this.

M. Laitman: Yes, that's for sure. It's for sure that first and foremost it's us. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (37:45) He writes a lot in this part about respecting the internality. It's something we really have to invest in how to notice more internal qualities in people and not their externality. For instance, a friend behaves in a horrible way, he drives everyone crazy, but he is in concern, he is in the lessons, he takes care of all the Zooms and everything. He does have qualities, but it's expressed in an ugly way. So you're still happy you have those people around you? 

M. Laitman: There are all kinds of people. I cannot be a judge of people. If they come to study, as much as they're capable of studying I need to teach. That is my role. As much as it's possible here or there to straighten them out, according to my own opinion, I need to try to do so but not to cause them some kind of shattering.

Student: The matter is how to do what he says here, to increase the internality and not only the externality. How do you increase or give more importance, respect the internality of people more? The friends, all together. Then you look at everything in a different way.

M. Laitman: Right, but we'll try.

End with a song: (41:00)